


Empires Fall: France

by Wind_Ryder



Series: Quest for Independence [2]
Category: 18th Century CE RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate History, BAMF Women, Children, Disabled Character, F/F, F/M, Family, French Revolution, Gen, M/M, Pamphlets, Politics, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Postpartum Depression, Ravens, Reunions, Sea Battles, Soldiers, War with England
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-11-23 09:42:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11400009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wind_Ryder/pseuds/Wind_Ryder
Summary: Sequel to Oceans Rise, events taking place in France.*~*~*Adrienne’s hand slips into Lafayette’s.  Holding it gently, but with a trail of relentless intent.  Their eyes meet, and Adrienne presses onwards.  “You live for spite, Gilbert.  You enjoy it entirely too much to forget it now.  My mother has ordered us to Versailles at the King’s behest, and so to Versailles we must go.  But your mission, your goals, and who you are hasn’t altered in the slightest.  So your arm is broken -- men have fought with broken arms before.  So you feel weak -- men have recovered their strength.  You have it in you.  And you have a desire to be more than this.  You always have.”Her husband laughs.  “What do you suggest?  That I fight a war in Versailles?”“I suggest that you suggest a war in Versailles.  And you fight it where your enemy lives.” Releasing his hand, Adrienne settles back on her heels.  “You’ve spent all this time feeling sorry for yourself, when really -- the most spiteful thing you can be at the moment is exactly that.  Yourself.  You’ve never been one to sit still and let the world tell you who you are, Gilbert.  Don’t do it now.”





	1. Eliza

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for your patience in this. 
> 
> I am still working on writing these and it will take time to update, but I look to update each fic with some frequency. There didn't seem like a better time to start posting than today, and so, without further ado: please enjoy.

The Château de Chavaniac sits on a plot of land in the southern half of France.  It’s beautiful.  Wide open fields as far as the eye can see.  Trees decoratively planted.  Spaces for gardens and flowers.  There’s even a fountain.  Eliza walks the grounds each morning at dawn.  Hands reaching down into the tall grass to pull up blades she can twist into yarn.  She stops at the farm by midday.  And she watches the staff attempt to pull food from too dry land.

Eliza twists her grass.  More and more.  Braiding and chaining it so that everything holds firm. “It’ll rain soon,” Adrienne promised not long ago, when she’d been introducing Eliza to the property’s staff.

It took time to remember everyone’s names.  Some families had served the Lafayettes since before Gilbert was born.  “No slaves of course,” Adrienne had felt the need to add on.  She hadn’t said it with a malicious tone, but Eliza couldn’t help but wince.  Bite her tongue.  Nod and smile politely.

Initially, Eliza walking the property held no purpose.  She meant only to walk.  Clear her head.  It’s evolved since then.  Needed to, in the face of new challenges and difficulties.  Walking was good.  Filling her lungs with fresh air, and clearing her mind some.  Allowing for fresh thoughts to seep in.  Allowing for conversation to continue.

The Château had retained an ever present feeling of melancholy since their return from London.  Angelica and her husband have been wonderful and attentive to all of Eliza’s needs or concerns.  Martha has been just the same as she always is.  And even Eliza’s friendship with Adrienne has persisted.

And yet, Eliza struggled to find peace.  The house felt strangely claustrophobic.  Eighteen rooms, and each one seems more confining than the next.  Made all the worse by little Frances.  Who hasn’t said so much as a word since she heard her mother had left with her father back to America.  Just run off.  Rushed up the stairs to the room she’d been given.  Hid in her bed and didn’t come out to sup.

Eliza’s spent days outside the girls’ door.  Hoping she’d come out.  Praying she’d answer her call.  “Fanny?  Fanny…?”  Frances rarely, if ever, answers.

Everyone comes up with their excuses.  Their time frames for when Frances would forgive them for her parents’ abandonment.  Eliza almost feels as if they’ve begun to wager when Frances plans on coming out.  Adrienne suggested it would be in two days, Angelica five, Church offered a week as an acceptable option.

And for all of their discussions, none have attempted to encourage Frances free from her domain.  Still, every day, Eliza knocks at the door.  Tries the handle.  Listens for the sounds of Frances moving.  Hears her shuffle to sit against the door.  Eliza on the other side.

Eliza liked to read books to Frances through the door.  Borrowing them from Lafayettes’ library to find something of substance.  There are a variety of books that Adrienne and Lafayette collected.  The Greek Classics are of particular interest.  The stories are rich and full of meaning, and Eliza challenges her understanding of the language as she translates them for Frances while she reads.

Everyone’s wrong with how long it takes for Frances to come out.  One morning, before her walk, Eliza went to the door on habit.  Knocked twice, and asked if she wanted to walk with her.  One month after hiding herself away, Frances opened the door, and took Eliza’s hand.

They walk together now.

At each other’s sides.  Frances talks quietly about what it was like living with her mother in England.  Eliza tells Frances about Alexander.  “They’re coming back,” Eliza promises.

“That’s what you all said last time,” Frances refutes.

It’s the truth, and Eliza struggles to find the correct words.  “Then we shall go to them.”  Frances’ eyes fill with tears, but she nods.  Holds onto Eliza’s hand and doesn’t let go.  “We’ll go to them,” Eliza repeats.

And in the meantime, they walk.  Twisting blades of grass into rope, and talking slowly.  Settling before the farms, Eliza and Frances look out over the too dry land.  “Hasn’t rained in weeks,” Frances mumbles.  Head down.  She’s got a little dash of dirt on her skirt hem.  She’ll have more than that from sitting on the ground.  Neither care.

A lock of Frances’s dark hair has fallen in her face.  Eliza tucks it behind her ear and smiles at her.  “It’ll rain soon,” she echoes Adrienne’s words.  Frances doesn’t believe in miracles.  If not for Eliza’s persistence on reading the gospel, Eliza wonders if the young girl would even believe in God.

Frances’ smile doesn’t reach her eyes.  The corners dip down her cheeks.  Her nose scrunches some.  She looks exhausted.  Unhappy and dissatisfied.  “How old are you Frances?” Eliza asks, eager to change the topic from the drought.

“Nine I think,” the girl replies.  She tugs and pulls at the grass.  Twisting and twisting and twisting until her chain breaks.  Holding both pieces in her hands, Frances’s bottom lip warbles.

“Thread them together,” Eliza advises.  “Even when something breaks, if you put the pieces back together, it can be stronger than it was before.” Frances doesn’t move, and so Eliza reaches over.  Takes the pieces and shows her how.  Starts weaving the threads around and around.  Tying them into place bit by bit.

The grass is dry.  The winter had been cold, but it hadn’t snowed much in France.  And in spring, the sun burned high up above, but it offered no water.  Freshly grown grass had quickly turned brittle.  Sooner or later, they wouldn’t be able to make the little rope chains at all.  Even the freshly bloomed flowers of spring had wilted quickly under the too hot sun.  Not even out of April yet, and yet there’d not been nearly enough water.

 _It’ll rain soon,_ Eliza reminds herself.  She hands the grass chain back to Frances.  Desperate to give her something to distract herself with.  She needed to get it done.  Needed to finish everything up.

“When I was nine years old, I used to go for walks into the woods around our property.  I liked finding rocks.  Pretty ones.  There was a creek that used to run behind the house in Albany, and I’d sit out and look for the prettiest rocks I could.”  As she spoke, Eliza settled her rope chain onto her lap.  She pulled a little at the grass they sat on, until the earth below was revealed.  Digging her nails into the dry soil, she scrapes and pulls at the ground.

Frances watches her.  Blue eyes widening as she observes.  Eliza cares little for the dirt that collects under her nails.  Doesn’t take note of how her fingers are stained brown.  She keeps digging and digging until she finds a small rounded pebble.  “My father and brothers used to travel to town frequently, and whenever they did I worried that I’d never see them again.  So I’d collect little rocks.  Find them and line them up in patterns and designs.  And when they returned home, I’d scatter all the rocks out into the field.” She holds out the pebble she finds.

Frances takes it gingerly.  Asking, “Why rocks?” as she rolls it over on her palm.  

“Because rocks don’t die.  They don’t wilt.  They don’t shatter or break.  They’re eternal.  Forever.  Part of the earth.  Just as we are, and just as we eventually will be.  And they’ll always be there the next time someone must leave.  Waiting to be reclaimed and held onto for the future.” Reaching over, Eliza closes Frances’ fingers around the pebble.  “You’ll see your parents again.”

“Never saw my father at all,” Frances mumbled.  “Don’t matter much if I meet him.”

 _Children of war,_ Eliza thinks sadly.   _Doomed to a parentless life._  “I only met him briefly…but I can tell you about him if you like?” Frances just shrugs.  Looks up and turns back toward the house.  Frowning slightly.

“Someone’s calling for you.”  Eliza didn’t hear it, but she looks too.  Squints against the sun to try to see who it could be.  She can’t quite make it out, but it’s someone tall.  Waving their arm high.  Helping Frances to her feet, the two quickly return to the house.

Martha.

Mrs. Washington is slightly out of breath.  Sweat beads at her forehead, but she smiles broadly when they approach.  Leaning over a touch to catch her breath as Eliza and Frances draw close.  She places a hand on Eliza’s arm, though.  Rests one on Frances’s crown.  Smiling at both.  “Something’s arrived…from Prussia.”

Eliza’s breath catches in her throat and she excuses herself.  Grass rope squeezed tight in her hand as she hoists up her skirt and runs.  Working hard not to trip as she crosses over the uneven terrain back to the house.  Pushing open the first door she sees, she stumbles into the hall and looks about.  Listening for the sounds of commotion.

It comes in the form of a raven call.  Echoing through the Château.  With Frances and Martha at her heels, Eliza hurries to the front door.  Nearly falling into the foyer in her haste.  Lafayette’s already been summoned.  He’s managed to carefully ease himself from his physician enforced bed-rest so he can lean against the banister and watch the delivery men pass a gilded cage with a young raven inside over to Adrienne’s care.

“Lord above, Monsieur Lafayette you should not be out of bed,” Eliza chastises immediately.  Hurrying to the man’s side.  Adrienne isn’t paying her husband any mind.  Letting him play the fool and struggle to stand.  Letting him stare at the raven as if it’s an omen of sorts.  His skin has been a waxy pale for weeks.  Doctors debating every other day whether his arm was better removed from his body or kept attached.

He’d been fighting a fever since London, and from the state of him, it seems as if it’s returned en force.  Torn between addressing the packages that have been delivered and Lafayette himself, Eliza grits her teeth.  Attends to her husband’s dear friend rather than investigate the items that have been delivered.  

Adrienne’s already poking through the other things.  A box containing various letters is opened first.  Names written in careful ink on the tops.  Eliza turns her back to the proceedings and dedicates herself to Lafayette.  “I’m quite well, Madame,” he bluffs unsuccessfully.

Eliza doesn’t even quantify that with a reaction.  Says simply, “I’m certain you are, sir,” and eases him from where he’d been leaning so he was sitting on the stairs proper.  His arm is still bound to his chest, and Eliza wraps her arm around his back to support his descent.  He grumbles unhappily, and she chooses to ignore him entirely.

The man’s been almost as belligerent as Frances since they’d returned to his home, and while he’d been approved for travel from the King—he still isn’t completely well.  His injury flaring up with frequent bouts of agony before offsetting such feelings with dreadful numbness.  Nausea had ruled him for quite some time.  What little food they’d managed to gather turning his stomach sick regardless of how much they cooked it.

“It’s the same bird I saved,” Lafayette tells Eliza as she settles beside him on the steps.  Frances and Martha draw in near.  Eyes wide.

“The bird you broke your arm for?” Frances asks.  She’s not trying to be impertinent, but the question still makes Lafayette grimace.  His face twists as he keeps his attention focused in the opposite direction.  Seemingly realizing she’s not going to get a response, France just presses on.  “What’s it’s name?”  

Eliza opens her mouth to answer, but pauses.  Realizing suddenly she doesn’t know.  The older birds had names, she knew that.  But she cannot recall hearing anything about the fledglings.  It doesn’t help that their escape had happened so quickly after King George’s attack that there’d not been much time to discuss such matters.  Not much time to go into detail over anything at all.

Mary’s daughter rocks backward and forward on her heels.  Looking more and more impatient the longer Lafayette takes to reply.  Eventually, though, the man grunts out, “Doesn’t have one,” just as Anastasie and Georges come running down the stairs from wherever they’d been playing.

Adrienne closes the box of letters with a snap and tucks it under her arm.  She approaches the raven cage with sharp steps.  One of the workers halting her momentum.  Warning, “Bird’s been nothing but a menace since we left, madam.”

She doesn’t seem to care.  Side stepping the man, Eliza watches as she reaches for the latch and unhooks it.  Immediately the raven bursts from the pen flying in a great circle around their heads before landing before Lafayette.  Hopping about in front of his body.

The major general’s lips pull up into a faint smile.  He lets the fingers of his good hand stretch out toward it, and the raven meets his touch part way.  Pressing black feathers up into his touch.

“We should talk,” Adrienne says softly.  Clearing her throat, she calls for a servant.  Asks for the children to be put away.  The raven caws loudly and hops about on the stone floor.  Not that it matters.  Eliza assists Lafayette to his feet, and they make their way to the salon.  Raven following them the whole while.

Angelica and her husband join them shortly, and when the door closes, it’s just them.  The remnants of their rebellion in London.  The door closes behind them, and Lafayette’s raven caws once more.

In a strange way, it seems almost fitting that they join here like this.  The sunlight burns in through the windows, and Eliza cannot help but wonder if this is where they were always going to end up.  No matter what they did.

Perhaps so.

The door closes, and they begin again.

***

Eliza cannot sleep.

In the two months since their insurrection, she’s felt the changes within her body.  Felt the knowledge of how the world has shifted.  Understood her place in the present, and where it would bring them for their future.  Alexander wrote her a letter, promising that he’d see her again.  When the war is over.  When his duty was finished.  She rests a hand on her stomach and looks out the window of her room.  All the letters in the world won’t be satisfaction enough.

Not for this.

 _It’s been too long,_ Eliza knows.  She’s counted the days since she last saw him.  Counted the moments since they’d last been together.  And, _It’s been too long._  

 _My dearest Betsey,_ Alexander had written.   _Undoubtedly you have been fretting yourself for concern since our last meeting, but I have written today to set your worries to rest.  We are well, the whole of us, and we shall continue to be so now and into_ _the_ _our future..._

There had been other documents that were sent to them, of course.  John and Mary had cosigned a letter that came primarily from Mary’s pen.  Mary had espoused lovely words for Frances, though her daughter hadn’t cared to listen to them.  She’d locked herself back in her room.  Disinterested in what her parents had to say, since they’d determined that a letter would be more sufficient than their physical presence.

Children rarely have much forgiveness in the delicate nature of warfare and survival.  Too concerned with themselves, they fail to see the good things when they come.  Lafayette had watched as Frances closeted herself away again.  Exhaustion clear on his features as he ducked his head and returned to his room.  Unconsciously mimicking the small child.  Running away from his fears.  Hiding in the dark.

Clouds shift above the chateau, and Eliza shivers unconsciously.  Pulling her shawl more firmly around her shoulders.  Resigning herself to wakefulness, she fetches a candle.  Lighting it proficiently before stepping from her room.  

The staff was turned in for the night.  A few people milled about to moniter the property, but by and large the chateau remained silent.  The quiet digging into place and burrowing deep.  It pulled at the hair at the back of Eliza’s neck.  Forcing it to stand on end as she walked through the halls.  Each footstep echoing ominously.

Her ears turned outward.  Searching for any sound in the night.  She felt like she was chasing ghosts.  Jumping at shadows.  She passes one of the maids leaving the pantry, arms full of flour that needed to be prepared before morning.  Bidding a quiet _bonne nuit,_ as they pass each other by.

At the foot of the steps, there’s another presence.  This one far smaller.  “Frances?” Eliza calls.  Her voice echoes about the hall, and the girl jumps.  Startled and shy.  She looks back at Eliza, biting her lower lip and huddling closer to the banister.  “What are you doing out of bed?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

Moonlight shines through the windows opposite.  Casting long shadows in the dark.  Frances brings her thumb up to press against her lip.  She doesn’t bite it.  Just pushes the pad at her skin.  Tongue poking along the side.  “You’ll never get to sleep sitting out here,” Eliza chides quietly.  Her knees crack as she slowly lowers herself to sit at Frances’ side.  Not even thirty yet and her body already feels like it’s aged and infirm.

Her lower back has been bothering her as well.  Though she suspects that will only grow worse as time goes on.  “Was gonna go downstairs and find something to eat,” Frances reveals, voice just barely above a whisper.

“Why didn’t you?” The little girl shrugs her shoulders.  Presses her thumb even harder against her mouth.  Eliza’s never known Frances to be scared before.  Upset and unhappy, certainly.  Those emotions seem to come whether anyone wants them to or not.  But true _fear_ seems strange somehow.  Like it’s not supposed to be there.  Like it doesn’t belong.  “Do you want me to fetch you something?”  It wouldn’t do to coddle the child, but Eliza has little else to do at this time.  The distraction could be good.  Frances shakes her head though.  Reaches out and takes Eliza’s hand in hers.  Wet fingers sliding around Eliza’s palm.

“Something’s down there,” she says softly.  

Shivers race up and down Eliza’s spine.  She casts her eyes down the stairs.  Toward the shadows in the dark.  The maid’s footsteps have long since disappeared.  Not even echoes remain.  Still, the hair on the back of Eliza’s neck hasn’t settled, and she can now feel her heart as it beats soundly in her chest.  She squeezes Frances’ hand. “What’s down there?”

“Don’t know.  But I saw it.”

“Saw what?”  

Frances shrugs.  Bites her lip.  Little fingers tightening around the banister.  Eliza scans the staircase and the floor below as best she can, but sees nothing.  No shift in the shadows.  No light where it shouldn’t be.  There’s not even the sound of wind, clattering against the windows.

“Come,” Eliza whispers.  “Let’s go to bed.”

It takes more prodding than Eliza would have liked.  She needs to tug at Frances’ hand.  The little girl doesn’t want to stand.  She presses in against the banister harder and harder.  Shaking her head nervously as she casts her gaze down the staircase.  But Eliza wins out in the end.  Frances giving up and scrambling to her feet.  Pressing her head to Eliza’s waist and looking over her shoulder to watch the stairs as Eliza encourages her back toward her room.

They move slowly, but purposefully.  One foot in front of the other.  Eliza keeps an arm around Frances’ shoulders, and holds onto one of the girl’s hands as well.  Not slowing down for anything.  She’s not sure she even believes that a threat exists.  But Frances does, and for now that seems to be enough.

Opening the girl’s bedroom door, Eliza leads her little ward inside.  Pulling the covers back so she can help lift Frances into bed.  “Have you slept at all?” Eliza asks quietly.  She’s set her candle on Frances’ bedside table.  Orange glow illuminating the room just enough for Eliza to observe the dark corners around Frances’ bed.  There’s nothing to fear.  Nothing at all.  

When she shakes her head in reply, Eliza can only sigh.  Reach for a doll that’s lying face first not far away.  It’s a pretty little thing.  Hand sewn and firm.  Much finer quality than anything Eliza had played with when she’d been young, and her father had not been stingy in his gifts.  She hands the toy to Frances carefully.  Pressing it to her chest.  Smiling fondly as the girl wraps her arms around it.  

“Don’t wanna sleep,” Frances tells her eventually.  “I wanna be somewhere else.”

It’s not hard to guess where.  “Home?” Frances’ dark hair tangles as she nods.  Frizzing around her crown.  Eliza kisses her brow and says, “I miss _my_ home.”

“Why’d you come back then?  That’s where mom and dad went, isn’t it?  To where you live?  Why didn’t you go back with them?”

“I couldn’t.  It wasn’t safe.  And it won’t be for some time.”

“It seems foolish to go someplace not safe.  I never thought my mom was foolish.” It takes everything Eliza has not to argue.  Not to say something brash.  Frances is a child.  And a lonely one at that.  

Sighing, Eliza leans down and kisses her again.  “Your parents are making the world safe for you.  And when America is ready...we’ll go and be with them.  And you’ll see just what they’re fighting for.  It will be worth the wait, little dove.  You’ll see.  And you won’t find their efforts to be foolish then.  I promise you that.” Stroking the girl’s cheek, Eliza smiles.  Stands slowly.  “Go to sleep.  All right?  Nothing will harm you.”

Quick as a fox, Frances grabs onto Eliza’s hand.  Holding her at the wrist and refusing to let go.  “Don’t leave.”  Eliza doesn’t know what to say.  “Please?” Frances begs.

Sighing, Eliza nods.  Motioning for Frances to slide over.  The girl scrambles to do just that.  Making room for Eliza to slip in under the covers.  Almost as soon as she’s settled, Frances is pressed against her.  Small head nudging into place at her collarbone.  

She doesn’t go to sleep immediately, like Eliza suspected she would.  Instead, Frances wraps an arm around Eliza as best she can, and stays very still.  Staring off at the wall.  Barely breathing.  Only shifting enough so Eliza can stroke her hair very slowly as they rest.

There’s a clock in Frances’ room.  A lovely ornate piece with a swinging pendulum.  Eliza steadies herself to breathe in once every five seconds.  Pacing each breath to the ticking. The hair on the back of her neck still hadn’t laid flat.  Her ears, still hypersensitive, kept alerting her attention to the smallest sounds of the house.  Wood creaking and floors settling.  

Someone starts walking the halls.  A servant most likely.  Footsteps echoing like drops in a bucket.  Ripples spreading through the well.  Each step grows closer and closer.  Each breath against Eliza’s chest feels more nervous and cut off.  The steps approach the door, and Eliza’s arm tightens around Frances’ shoulders.

They keep walking.

Tension bleeds from Eliza’s body.  She keeps petting Frances’ long hair.  Breathing in slowly, then letting it out just as slow.  Her mind wanders uncomfortably.  Drawing images up from the past and future that she has no desire to entertain.  She’s no prophet.  She doesn’t care to be one either.  Yet she cannot keep her brain from meandering down the various trails of _what if, what if, what if._

Frances grows heavy over time.  Her chin sliding down Eliza’s breast.  Tucked up tight against her body.  Somewhere on the grounds, Eliza can hear a raven cawing loudly.  It sounds off in bursts.  Caw.  Caw.  Caw.  

Caw.  Caw.  Caw.

Caw.

Caw.

Caw.

Biting her lower lip, Eliza carefully slides out from beneath Frances.  Checking again and again to make sure the girl doesn’t wake.  God on her side, the child doesn’t.  Exhaustion wearing her into immobility at long last.  Even if it hadn’t been so late at night, anger has a tendency to make the body weary.  And Frances had been angry since the moment they’d returned from London.

The damned raven kept cawing, and Eliza couldn’t shake the sound from her head.  Slipping toward the door, she casts one look back at Frances.  Frowning for a moment, before stepping into the hall, and locking Frances’ bedroom shut behind her.

Nothing has changed in the time since she was last here.  Standing in the dark.  She’s not even sure why she expects there to be something different.  But the hair won’t stop rising on the back of her neck.  Her heart’s compressing within her chest.  The raven keeps cawing, and Frances’ words echo in her ears.

_Something’s down there._

She follows the sound of the bird.

Caw.

Caw.

Caw.

Idly, Eliza thinks there should be the sound of more people moving about.  Time’s shifted over the course of the night.  Dawn approaching.  Even in winter, it comes soon.  The staff should be doing something right now.  She isn’t entirely sure what.

But she knows they should be doing _something._

The raven’s caws get louder.  Eliza’s not even entirely certain where Lafayette put it.  There’d been some confusion after it arrived.  Lafayette’s energy waning too much for him to adequately express his desires.  He’s been overindulging his children from the moment he returned from London.  Letting them chatter away endlessly while he tried to stay upright.

That he’d managed to be marginally  coherent in their meeting earlier still remains a mystery.

Approaching the staircase, Eliza peers down it.  Dark shadows locked around every corner.  She can hardly see the parlor.  But as she stands there, she can feel it.  The _shadows_ moving.  Swaying.  Left and right.  

The air feels cold.  

When she breaths out, she shivers from it.  Her nails tighten against her arms as she cradles them across her chest. She doesn’t hear a sound.  Not a single footstep.  Not one breath.  She doesn’t hear anything.  Save the sound of her heartbeat as it thundered in her chest.  Echoing in her ears.  Beating out like the drums of war.

The hands hit her back hard, but Eliza’s already turning.  Knees bent and spine condensing.  Pivoting her weight as she moved.  Momentum spins her around.  She’s still falling backwards, but it doesn’t matter.  She’s turned to look at what’s struck her.  She’s caught hold of her attacker.  

Her fingers latch onto the figure’s arm.  The man--it _is_ a man-- isn’t expecting it.  He pitches forward.  Falling with her.  He reaches for the banister in a vain attempt to steady himself.  Her legs twist.  Skirt shredding as one foot stomps on the hem as the rest of her weight keeps traversing.

Her hip strikes the first of the stone stairs, but her hands keep pushing.  Dragging her assailant and shoving as hard as she can -- sending him down in front of her.  Echos clamor against all the walls.  A door opens down the hall.

_Frances!_

Eliza rolls only a little ways away.  But her feet skid out and catch her from falling much father.  Her hands grip mightily to the banister.  Footsteps are coming.  Slapping against the marble ground.  Eliza pulls herself to her feet.  Her assailant is righting  _himself_ too.  He's off balance, uncertain.

Eliza takes him in.  No identifying marks.  No one she knows.  No one she _should_ know.  Their eyes meet, and he’s just a boy.  A boy with a twisted look about him, and fire in his eyes.  Eliza’s hand reaches out and takes hold of one of the Lafayette’s vases.  Mary always liked flowers.  Eliza suspects Mary would still approve her use of them.

Throwing the vase as hard as she can, she catches the man in the chest.  He takes one step back, catching himself on the stairs, but distracted nonetheless.  Eliza rushes forward.  Shoves outward.  Her palms meet his firm body, and then he’s gone.  Smashing down into the darkness.  Banging and colliding.  One step right after the other.  With nothing to break his fall save a porcelain vase and too pretty flowers.

Frances slides to a stop just behind Eliza, wide eyes staring up at her in terror.  Eliza catches her with an arm around her shoulders.  Pulls her to her side even as they stare down at the motionless man in the foyer.

 _“Bienvenue en France,”_ Eliza growls out.  She rests one hand on her belly.  And even though it’s far too soon to tell.  Far too soon for anything to happen at all, she could swear she felt a kick.


	2. Adrienne

There’s a sharp rapping at Adrienne’s door.  One that doesn’t abate for propriety nor decency sake.  Adrienne wakes slowly.  Eyes not coming into focus no matter how hard she blinked in the darkness.  Gilbert shifts at her side.  Goose flesh erupting across his skin from where he’s grown chill outside the protection of their covers.  He doesn’t seem to pay it any mind, however.  Just sits up slowly and steadily.  Squinting across the darkness and staring at the door like it’ll be thrown open at any moment.

“Stay here,” he orders Adrienne firmly.  Then, with more strength than Adrienne suspected him capable of so early in the morning, he carefully pushes himself to his feet.   His fever had been gone for days by now, but his energy had not yet returned.  More often than not, her husband needed rest, and a great deal of it.  That he was doggedly determined to put himself at risk felt much like one of Dedalus’ challenges.  

She’d not yet learned which honey would lead her husband to the other side of the maze however.  And at this moment?  She knows she’s not going to figure it out.  Gilbert wraps himself with a cloak kept by the bed.  Arm too feeble to slip through the sleeve of a good robe.  He hugs the cloak tight to his body, even as he stumbles to the door.  Leaning against the wall, he carefully opens it.

Hesitating only slightly, before widening it completely.  “Mrs. Hamilton--”  

“--Eliza?” Adrienne asks, hurrying from bed as well.  Frances is there too.  Pale faced and trembling.  She’s got one thumb pressed to her lips and is staring up at Eliza like she’s done something exceptional.  

Something that’s confirmed the moment Adrienne’s dear friend states, “I believe I’ve just killed a man,” with all the placidity of a turtle dove.  She stands there, not a hair out of place, back straight and lips pulled into a thin line.  Rigidly awaiting orders like a soldier of all things.  Adrienne has no idea where she’s learned such mannerisms, but it certainly hasn’t been from _her._

“What do you mean you _believe you’ve just killed a man?”_ Adrienne repeats.  She fetches her own robe now.  Slippers by the door.  Gilbert’s stepping back into the room.  Reaching for his sword that’s been doing little more than collecting dust by the door since he arrived in France.  It sits awkwardly in his left hand, and it takes him a moment to remove the blade from its scabbard.  Still, he motions for Eliza to lead the way, and neither wait for Adrienne as they depart.

It doesn’t take long to catch them.  They’re in the foyer.  Crowded around a man who’s lying motionless at the foot of the stairs.  Head surrounded by a deep pool of blood.  Dark clothes spread out around him.  Adrienne doesn't recognize the face, it's not one of their staff.  “What happened?” she asks quietly.

More footsteps.  Angelica, and Martha too.  They’re collecting a crowd, and one that will soon breed little eyes that have no business witnessing this event.  “Madame Washington, may you take Frances to the kitchen for us?” Gilbert asks softly, slowly kneeling beside the body.  The girl starts to argue, throwing her arms around Eliza and insisting that she stay.

But Martha wastes no time in escorting the child out of the room.  She hauls the girl from Eliza, and Angelica quickly retreats to ensure the other children are well out of sight.  “What happened Mrs. Hamilton?”

“Eliza,” she corrects him for what must be the hundredth time.  He makes no sign of having heard her.  Simply keeps his eyes locked on the body sprawled before them.  “I was unable to sleep and wished for a walk.  Frances was sitting on the top of the stairs and I escorted her to her room.  She said she thought she saw someone downstairs.  I didn’t believe her, but nevertheless when I returned, I thought I heard something as well.  He attempted to push me, but I managed to catch my fall.  He...was not as fortunate.”

Leaning in close, Gilbert holds his hand above the man’s face.  Frowning when he pulls it back.  “He’s not dead,” Gilbert informs them briskly.  Some of the staff members have started to line the walls of the foyer.  Watching silently and awaiting instructions.  “Help me bring him to the west room,” Gilbert orders firmly.  

Loath to admit weakness, Gilbert at least isn’t a complete fool.  Adrienne helps him rise to his feet while the others scurry to do his bidding.  Hoisting the man upwards and dragging him out.  “Secure some bindings as well,” Adrienne requests from a young woman just before she passes.  

Eliza stays at Adrienne’s side as the man is dragged off.  Her pale face growing more pale.  She’s trembling slightly, and Adrienne’s tempted to offer her some brandy.  It’s not the first man she’s killed, and certainly it’s not her second any longer.  “Are you injured?” Adrienne asks her friend slowly.  She shifts her weight. Slides into position so that she is meeting Eliza’s eyes directly.  The older woman flinches back somewhat.  Blinking rapidly as though she couldn’t quite make out Adrienne’s face, despite their slim distance.

But the other woman shakes her head.  Her hair falls into her face a touch.  Her shoulders slump ever so slightly. “Eliza?”  Her friend bites her lip.  Shrugs her shoulders.  

“It’s nothing,” The words blurt out uncontrolled and without thought.  Adrienne purses her lips.  She feels tension slide along the scope of her back, drawing her upright fully.  Chin tilted ever so slightly, she deigns to peer down her nose at Eliza.  Enjoying how when they stand flat-footed here in the foyer, the height difference is negligible at best.

Shame is flushing Eliza’s cheeks.  Turning her dark eyes wet.  Adrienne continues holding her gaze on her friend.  Taking in each and every part of Eliza’s body and posture.  How her shoulders set.  How her hair lays upon her shoulders.  How one hand has lingered for far too long upon her stomach.  The other gripping a shawl tight around her shoulders.  

Arithmetic has never been a bother.  Adrienne squints through the darkness, counts backwards in her head.  Grimacing along with her friend as she deduces, “You’re with child,” and makes Eliza flinch.  “Were you harmed?” Adrienne presses on.  She steps closer now.  Keeping her voice soft.  Low.  So their whispers don’t carry.  

Martha, Frances and all the others are long gone.  Her husband has gone off with their prisoner, and the staff have started to wake up the house.  Candles and lanterns are lighting the hallways.  Footsteps echo everywhere else.  But for this one moment, Eliza and Adrienne are alone.  Cool blue light shrouding them from the morning just beyond the windows.  Chaos reigning everywhere, except for right here.

Belligerence, Adrienne finds, is the only true way to embrace a pregnancy.  

Tears fall from Eliza’s eyes.  Her head ducks low, and she brings the hand holding her shawl up to her face.  The cloth drags from her shoulders.  Swinging before her body.  She dabs the corners at her cheeks.  Trying to dry them.  Hide them.  Adrienne stands motionless.  Watching uncertainly. “Were you _harmed?”_ she repeats.  Insistent, if only because she knows no other priority to assess aside from that.

Her mind is a chess board, but she can’t see the squares.

Eliza shakes her head, and the board clears.  Releasing a breath Adrienne hadn’t even realized she’d been holding, she steps forward. Even closer than they’d been before.  She pulls Eliza to her body.  Wraps her arms around Eliza, trapping Eliza’s in the process so the hug couldn’t even be returned.  

Eliza’s head sinks down so it rests against Adrienne’s shoulder, and they stand there, quiet and alone.  There are no words that can be said.  Giving voice to thoughts does not resolve the issue the thoughts have provided.  

“Alexander does not know,” Eliza tells Adrienne uselessly.  It’s not what bothers Eliza.  Husbands don’t know about their children on most occasions.  If Mary were to be asked, them _knowing_ does nothing at all.  The baby is coming whether Alexander knows or doesn’t know.

It doesn’t _matter_ that he doesn’t know.

What matters is that, “You have no way to tell him.” Eliza’s shoulders shiver within Adrienne’s grasp.  Her breath chokes back into hitching sobs.  She wriggles a bit so she can wrap her arms around Adrienne’s body in return.  Squeezing so tight that Adrienne’s own breath turns weak.  

Very suddenly, the assassin is no longer Eliza’s priority.  Words spill from Eliza’s mouth.  Still hushed and quiet, almost hissing in their silence.  Garbled badly around tears to the point that Adrienne struggles to interpret each their meanings.  Soon enough, Eliza’s hitching sobs start to grow louder.  Echoing through the foyer and drawing concerned glances from one or two servants who rush in to see whatever is the matter.

Sending them back with a shrewd glare, Adrienne waits for solitude before speaking again.  “We will find a way to tell him.”

“Shall we tell him about the assassin too?” Eliza hisses almost immediately.  Grief twisting into anger in a snap.  She shoves away from Adrienne suddenly.  Pacing.  Lips pressed tight.  Fingers ringing at the shawl.  Tearing holes in the fabric and making them bigger the longer she tugged and twisted.  “Shall we tell John about the daughter he’s never met?  Mary about how Frances believes she’s been abandoned to her fate?  Shall we remind General Washington of his wife?  Of his familial obligations that never seem to matter in comparison to the need to fight a war.”

Eliza’s voice is sharp.  Her tone nearing malicious.  She’s walking to and fro.  Feet slapping harshly against the solid ground.  Even as the sun rises and fills the foyer with more light, it seems to only reveal just how pale Eliza truly is.  There are crescents beneath Eliza’s eyes.  Dark and deep.  Smudged rims that carve trenches around her sockets.  

With nothing to say, and no words that could easily give Eliza comfort, Adrienne holds her tongue.  Watching as her friend works herself into more of a frenzy.  “Shall we tell him how they left to keep us safe, and yet we are not safe?  How there are dangers here in France where we have gone to avoid conflict?  How--” she cuts herself off.

Her feet stop.  She stares blankly at the staircase she’d thrown an assassin down.  A staircase that still has streaks of blood from where flesh split and bones cracked.  She’s cast in stone.  Taking in the gruesome image it portrays.  All the more disturbing if one considers that the blood itself isn’t nearly as plentiful as it could have been.

It’s easy enough to imagine how things could have gone.  Eliza thrown down the stairs-- made to look like such a simple accident.  Where to would the assassin have gone next?  To Gilbert and Adrienne?  To their children?  

Questions rotate within Adrienne’s head, and she longs to follow after her husband.  To address the situation as best she can.  Her friend laughs.  One single huff that sounds nearly as grotesque as the fantasy Adrienne’s conjured.  When Eliza speaks, she cuts through Adrienne’s heart.  Creating alternatives to solutions Adrienne’s long since done away with.  “I will never see my husband again.”  Eliza looks back at Adrienne.  Shawl dropping entirely to the floor.  

“You need to lie down,” Adrienne tells her.  Eliza doesn’t listen.  She steps over the shawl, and walks after the assassin.  

Someone comes hurrying up to Adrienne before she can so much as take a step after her dear friend.  “Madame,” her servant speaks, nervous.  Uncertain.  Rushed.  

“What is it?” Adrienne asks, fetching the shawl off the floor and preparing to follow Eliza down the hall.

“Gerard saw the carriages, madame.”  

Adrienne stops.  Turns to look at her servant fully.  “Carriages?”

“The flags--” The servant stumbles over the word.  Like the can’t quite believe it himself.  “The banners are the de Noailles!”

Adrienne doesn’t drop Eliza’s shawl, but to be perfectly honest: she very nearly did.

 

***

 

Henriette Anne Louise d'Aguesseau, Duchess of Noailles, Princess of Tingry, heiress of Henri François d'Aguesseau, and wife of Jean Paul François de Noailles, Count and Duke of Ayen did not approve of Gilbert.  Nor, Adrienne suspected, would she ever.  Henriette exited her carriage as though she had not been riding all night.  As though she had not intended to disturb them from their slumber and startle them into wakefulness.  As though she _isn’t_ surprised at finding the entire household awake.  But Adrienne’s mother has always been like that.  Entirely implacable.  Impossible to survive, and impossible to circumvent.

The sun’s barely coming up in the distance, and Henriette never did anything without a reason.  If she had any disappointment from not being able to startle them all out of their beds, she hid it well.  Instead, she spreads her arms to the side.  Smiles bright as can be, and Adrienne relishes in the few moments of instinctual relief that always rise within her when she fell into her mother’s embrace.

Her mother smells of perfume.  Something sharp and spicy that tingles Adrienne’s nose.  It’s a new scent.  A good one.  Henriette’s shoulder is softly padded and comfortable.  Her clothing is smooth beneath Adrienne’s cheek.  Still.  Their embrace only lasts moments.  Their kiss is hardly worth noting.

Henriette takes Adrienne’s face between her palms and tilts it up toward the sky.  Pale grey meets Adrienne’s eyes and she submits to her mother’s ministrations.  All the while feeling a pull at the back of her mind, a tight fist holding her heart in a vice.  A subtle reminder telling her that she needed to be elsewhere.  “You look tired,” Henriette concludes at long last.

Adrienne steps back from her mother and nods her head.  Forces a smile and offers her an arm to take in order to guide her inside.  “It has been an interesting morning,” she explains lightly.  While lying to her mother is pointless, easing her into the situation seems far more polite than the alternative.

The servants will see to the luggage that Henriette has brought, clearly expecting that her presence will not be rejected.  Adrienne can think of no reason why she would reject her mother either.  If anything, seeing the woman is wonderful.  A refreshing breath of air that Adrienne truly is grateful for, in the way that children are often grateful for their parents’ assistance.  And yet, the timing is less than ideal.   _You look tired,_ her mother had said.

 _Looks,_ Adrienne decides then and there, _are highly deceiving._

She isn’t _tired._  The feeling her body has now isn’t simply a passing weariness that can be corrected with a few moments rest in the shade.  A book to occupy her errant thoughts, or a calming brew made from the kitchen.  Her very muscles and sinew ache as they frame her body.  Her knees creak when she moves.  Her spine stiffens and she finds herself cracking her knuckles and vertebrates throughout her day.  Tilting her head left and right in order to ease the strain in her neck.

When the children are playing outside, chasing butterflies and pulling grapes from their vines, she’ll collect their dirty bodies and set them in their tub to soak.  She’ll rub at their arms and legs and faces.  She’ll dress them again in soft cotton.  She’ll carry her boy, and hold her daughter’s hand.  She’ll pretend that she doesn’t imagine what her first born daughter would look like now.  

When she does this, Georges will rest his head on her shoulder.  His arms hang down her back.  His legs wrap around her hips.  She hugs him to her and she puts her arm around Anastasie’s shoulders.  She feels how Anastasie stumbles and toddles beside her.  Their presence is heavy against her body.  Their weariness sinks through her like an anchor through the sea.

She’ll put them to bed and wish to lay her head on a pillow.  Wish to close her eyes and sleep. She’ll return to her bedroom. To her husband.  And she will not sleep.  Instead, she’ll lie there and stare at the flickering wick of a candle she cannot seem to put out.  

Adrienne isn’t tired.

She’s waiting for the candle to extinguish.  And fill the world with only the scent of her.  Sharp and spicy.  Curling through the air.  Pervasive.  Echoing through their memories, as she is finally allowed a moment to stop.

Rest.

And burn no more.

“Come inside,” she offers to her mother.  Henriette is not impressed with the distraction.  But Adrienne is still trying to reset the chessboard in her mind.  She feels as though she’s playing four games simultaneously.  One with Eliza, one with her husband, one with all of France, one with all of England.  Kings and Queens are lining up at the fronts, and now here is another player.  Desperate to join the field.  Except Adrienne’s pieces have been knocked to the side, and all she has on the board is a single solitary knight.  Defending a king that’s long since been lost.

You can’t win the game with just a knight and a king.  

The best you can do is a stalemate.

“Adrienne,” Henriette chastises.  

They’re standing in the foyer.  Someone’s cleaning blood off the stairs.  Someone else is hurrying into the room where an assassin is being interrogated by her husband and possibly Eliza.  Someone else is at the top of the stairs, clearly awaiting further instructions.  Adrienne’s knight circles her chessboard, desperate for answers, for direction, for a place to go.

She meets her mother’s eyes, and quite against her will: she begins to cry.

Henriette startles badly.  Panicked for a moment, even as Adrienne attempts to reign in her emotions that seem to be doing nothing but betraying her utterly.  But in the end, it matters little.  She’s escorted promptly to a private sitting room and the door is shut firmly behind them.  She’s sat on a couch and her mother sits at her side, and her hands are taken.  “Tell me everything,” her mother insists.

And so she does.

The tears stop as her report takes form.  As she admits to her involvement in the murder of the King of England.  As she discusses saving her husband’s life and quite possibly damning them all to a future of bloodshed and violence.  She tells her mother everything.  And her mother listens.

Because that’s what mothers do.  They listen.  They listen and they hold their daughter’s hands, and when Adrienne’s finished telling tales of assassins in the night, Henriette nods her head curtly, and accepts everything her daughter has said as fact.  

“There were whispers, of course,” Henriette tells her quietly.  They speak softly.  Brows nearly touching.  “Of what occurred in London.”

Whispers were the way of the world. They were the currency for which the nobility bought and paid their success with.  Earning favors through their secrets.  Fans shielding their faces as they traded glances in the corners.  Seeing everything.  Watching everyone.  

Adrienne impressed in London because she could be a master of such whispers.  And Henriette has played this particular game far longer than Adrienne even wishes to be a part of.  Being good at something doesn’t mean she likes it.  If she’s honest with herself, Adrienne could even state that that’s the true difference between her and her mother.

Her mother likes the game.

Adrienne does not.

“I was in Versailles for some time you know,” Henriette continues.  Her voice soft.  Her tone warning.  When they returned from London so much had transpired.  So many people needed to be seen to.  Attended to.  The King and Queen not least of all.  Gilbert had become a man to whom the King of France had allowed himself to be controlled for.  

That they’d even been allowed to return to their home still baffles Adrienne.  She hadn’t imagined the King would let them go.  And now, after the events of the day, she’s not entirely sure that they should have.  An assassin in Versailles?  No one would dare.

But here?

Isolated and alone?

So much could have gone wrong tonight.  And Adrienne knows it’s likely only to become worse.

Someone knocks on the door once.  Adrienne doesn’t even need to look up to know who it is.  It opens without either of them beckoning them to enter.  Gilbert looks so young standing there.  Head tilted just a little.

Adrienne runs a hand over her face.  Her stomach hurts.  They’ve not eaten yet, and she’s not had a chance to inspect the household’s inventory either.  Her list continues to grow.  Her boards continue to mount.  Henriette makes a snorting noise through her nose, echoing up from the back of her throat.  An exploding snort of disdain that is uniquely her _mother._ “Well,” Henriette sniffs.  “In with you, since you’re clearly determined to be in.”

In Gilbert enters.  Closing the door delicately with his left hand.  His right lays out of its sling.  The doctor will be furious, but Adrienne can understand his decision.  Particularly if he’d had words with the assassin.  The sling will have to wait until they’re no longer in danger.  Gilbert’s pride will not allow him to be struck down with his arm so visibly compromised.

He strides across the room rather well for a man whose grand accomplishments of late had included descending the stairs without fainting.  Still, there’s sweat at his brow.  A sway to his posture.  He’s unsteady still.  But he bends at the waist, one knee bent.  Henriette waits expectantly, but Gilbert isn’t capable of conducting the final wave necessary.  His arm won’t respond.  It won’t finalize the wave.

“Gilbert,” Henriette greets icily.  “You seem to have lost your manners in London,” she continues, roaming her eyes over Adrienne’s husband.  Gilbert’s cheek twitches.  His jaw clenches.  Tension snaps through him like a whip striking its target.  

“My apologies, Duchess.”  His tone’s pleasant, but his fingers are trembling.  His teeth start grinding.  He hasn’t risen his head.  His bow is still imperfect.

Adrienne reaches for him, but he still doesn’t rise.  “Mother,” Adrienne hisses, and Henriette sighs.  She stands languidly, taking her time as she approaches Gilbert to offer her hand.  He stares at it for a moment, before delicately taking it with his left.  Grazing his lips across her knuckles and releasing it.

When he stands it’s not done with any grace.  He ticks upwards like the cogs of an aged clock.  Jerking into position.  A doll needing to be wound.  Even when his back straightens to its highest point, he lists slightly to one side.  Just enough for Adrienne to reach out and catch him.  Hands to his chest and back.  Holding him upright as his eyes flutter.  

Henriette is implacable, her face a fortress.  “You’re still quite ill I see?”

It takes an effort not to scowl.  Adrienne can feel her husband’s skin shivering under her grasp, and so she answers for him, “The physician has been instructing him to rest and—”

“—yet I am not too ill to see to your needs, Duchess,” Gilbert interrupts.  He hasn’t looked at Adrienne yet, but it hardly matters.  She can feel the heat radiating off his skin.  Can feel how he burns beneath her touch.  He’s been working himself too hard lately as it is, and her stomach twists at the thought of his fever returning.

Her mother does not care.  She waves a hand toward the nearest chaise ordering him to sit with a flick of her wrist.  “Regardless of your health, there’s a discussion we three need to have.  And all else can wait until that discussion has concluded.”  

For a moment, Adrienne’s struck speechless.  Staring at her mother even as her husband sighs in resignation.  He’s never been one to play by the rules of Versailles, never one to enjoy the performance that Versailles requires her courtiers to perfect.  Still.  He doesn’t balk at his mother-in-law.  Preferring instead to slowly make his way toward the chaise.  Settle down.  Arm held taut against his body.  Fingers rubbing at too sore muscles.  

Adrienne sits beside him.  It’s not often they’re able to sit like this.  Shoulder to shoulder.  Her dress would never allow for such contact, and in truth, it’s slightly indecent.  Her mother’s eyes narrow, but the confrontation is met with no resistance.  Henriette sits across from them and delicately sets her dress to order.

Someone comes by to ensure the curtains are drawn and the room has enough lighting.  The sun’s climbed high into the sky by now.  Adrienne’s stomach growls, and she ignores it.  She has to.  

“My daughter has been informing me of your adventures of late, and while I must say I’m gratified to know that you are in fact alive and no longer the product on an invoice delivered by the King of England, it doesn’t quite alleviate the burden you’ve placed on this family.” Gilbert doesn’t seem to be breathing.  He’s turned statuesque at Adrienne’s side.  Skin falling to a deathly pallor.  

Words stick in the back of Adrienne’s throat.  She opens her mouth, but cannot manage to breathe them into life.  Her hands curl into the folds of her nightgown, and she wishes she had time to prepare herself more appropriately.  Henriette keeps talking, each word a dagger sliding through Adrienne’s heart.  Another whip lying its lashes upon Gilbert’s body.  

For a single, hysterical, moment, Adrienne’s mind conjours the image of Gilbert’s arm breaking.  Replaying it just for a moment--ravens cawing, crowds screaming, the club rising and-- Her mother meets her eyes.  

Henriette’s lips are pursed.  Her shoulders held back.  Posture stiff.  She rode through the night to come here.  And she is a Lady unused to such unpleasantries.  Anger threatens to blind Adrienne from sense, and she forces it out of her.  Forces her hands to release.  

“And what additional burdens are you speaking of now, specifically, mother?” Adrienne asks slowly.

She receives a slight nod.  Her answer, although too sharp to be considered entirely appropriate, had been far more acceptable than Henriette likely believed her capable.  Had Gilbert not been nearing collapse, he’d almost certainly had a scathing response of his own.   _This isn’t an attack,_ Adrienne realizes at once.   _It’s preparation._

Dread fills Adrienne’s stomach, combatting the hunger and replacing it instead with nausea.  There are precious few individuals capable of commanding a Duchess such as Henriette to ride through the night.  Precious few who would dare.  And while Henriette didn’t live in Versailles, managing to stay out of the hell of court by entertaining in her salon in Paris, the journey between the cities was negligible at best.  

Smoothing her dress free of invisible wrinkles, Henriette tells them what Adrienne had already started to suspect, “The King has requested your audience.” Adrienne’s eyes close.

Gilbert slumps even further beside her.  Exhaustion and defeat reigning supreme.  “You are to answer for your actions in London, daughter.  The both of you.  Your...companions, Hamilton and Church are to come as well.  An apartment has been readied in Versailles.”

“How long before we are meant to answer?” Adrienne asks, struggling to organize her pieces.  Her mind feels cloudy.  She cannot tell which piece is what.  What path they’re meant to follow.  What direction they need to go in.  She cannot see what’s going to happen next.

“Two weeks,” Henriette replies.  She stands abruptly.  “Now, I’ll leave you to your assassin.” Disdain, Adrienne suspects, has never been so neatly weaponized in all of Earth’s history.

As her mother walks from the room, Adrienne cannot help but wonder, how precisely they’re going to manage another King, when they very nearly didn’t survive the last.


	3. Lafayette

When Lafayette was two years old, his father was struck in the chest by a cannonball and he died.  Lafayette cannot recall the moment that his mother learned the news of his father’s death.  And in truth, were it not for the portrait that used to hang in the great hall, Lafayette would have no knowledge of what he even looked like.  Parents, Lafayette had decided at an early age, were hardly more than those who provided the blood in his body and the breath in his breast.

Lafayette doesn’t remember being named Marquis and Lord of Chavaniac.  Though he does recall how his mother detested his home.  Detested his chateau and his birthright.  Detested it to the point that she left him there.  Leaving him to be raised by a grandmother whose one great passion in life, was telling stories. 

Georges and Anastasia are militant in their need for a story before bed.  They’ll beg one off the servants if Lafayette is too exhausted to manage.  They’ve heard all the classics.  Are bored with the words written on the pages of their books.  Georges likes to pull at Lafayette’s hand.  Beg him for some attention that Lafayette is more often than not too weary to argue against.  

They want to know stories about their family.  Georges wants to know about how his grandfather died.  About the cannonball that struck his grandfather’s chest.  About the battle of Minden.  About Westphalia.  They want to know about America and the war.  About the ships and the sails.  About London. 

Georges stares at Lafayette’s arm like it’s something out of a heroic tale.  He makes great shows of strength, slashing his own arms through the air like he’s swinging a sword.  “I’m going to be a hero, just like you, papa.” Lafayette hears instead,  _ I’m going to be injured just like you.  _

He takes a bottle of brandy to his bedroom and he drinks it down.  The glass is gone in the morning.  His wife is nothing if not meticulous.  Nobody needs to know. 

The night the assassin comes to kill them in their sleep, Lafayette’s sleeping off a drink that left him in a stupor.  His mind is slow and groggy.  Stumbling through liquor fueled dreams of cannons in the night.  Cracks in the dark.  Ravens screaming out his name.  

The dreams don’t make sense.  

They don’t have to. 

They always end the same. 

Adrienne is there.  Answering knocks at the door in the middle of the night.  She’s there to hold Eliza back when the panic starts.  To direct the children away from the body of a man who intended to kill them.  To organize the house.  To entertain her mother.  She’s there to listen and manage.  There to take care of everything.  

On 1 August 1759, Lafayette’s father died, and his mother left him alone.  Leaving him to be raised by a woman who told stories.  His mémé would have hated telling his story.  In  _ his  _ story, he’s not the great hero.  He’s not the conquering soldier.  He doesn’t die gallantly on the battlefield.  

In his story, he’s saved by his wife, and sent home to rest.  

In his story, he leaves the assassin chained in a room to be dealt with later.  He climbs the stairs to his bedroom.  He closes the door on his son’s eager face.  He doesn’t tell any tales at all.  He merely sits on his bed.  Feels the weakness in his hand.  And knows.  He will never fight again. 

Adrienne takes her time in coming to him.  The sun travels across the sky, and he doesn’t answer the door for servants who hesitantly offer food.  He doesn’t dress or bathe.  He doesn’t attend to the Duchess or her entourage.  

His mind circles in a loop.  Tirelessly tracking the journey that he’ll need to make.   _ No one can deny the King’s wishes.   _ He’d requested time to return to his home, and the King had granted it.  Lafayette has no right to argue.  No right to his home.  His solitude.  

Something his wife breaks in any case when she finally presses open the door to his room.  Stepping inside and closing it soundly.  She’s carrying a tray of food before her.  Servants, apparently, dismissed from their attempts.  He doesn’t care to dissect the look on her face.  The displeasure he knows he’ll see there.  He keeps his gaze on the floor.  Strangely, it reminds him of John’s room in the Tower of London. 

The tray is placed before him on his side table.  His wife doesn’t say a word.  She walks to the fireplace.  Stands there silently.  Back to him.  Ignoring him utterly.  Lafayette tries to move the fingers on his right hand.  Useless.  Twitching lumps that do nothing but disappoint.

Silence drags on.  Tension rises.  Lafayette glares hatefully at the pale pink walls.  Stripes far too pleasant for his current mood.  He folds his left hand over his write.  Pushes at his fingers so they form a proper fist.  Arm protesting mightily the whole while.  

Frances had been sitting at the stairs, Eliza had said.  She’d been sitting at the stairs watching something moving in the dark.  Knowing there was something wrong.  Frances, John Laurens’  _ child,  _ who was entrusted in their care to protect.  And in the end it had been  _ Eliza  _ who had thrown a man down a staircase.  Eliza.  A woman he’d promised Alexander he’d protect.  

“Georges is too young for Versailles, though there hardly seems much point in avoiding the matter much longer.”  It’s not where Lafayette expected his wife to begin.  In some ways, that’s probably for the best.  Because as his temper starts rising, Georges seems to be the easiest place to start. 

He closes his eyes.  Blocking out the shades of pink as his wife starts walking the room.  Her shoes are flat slippers.  Sent over from a relative Lafayette didn’t care to remember.  He listens to them as she walks.  Careful, certain steps.  Heel to toe.  Like a dancer.  She’s always moved with uncommon grace, metronomic in a way.  Perfect timing.  One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three--

“--Anastasie and Frances of course should attend.  Though Frances will need instruction on how to behave appropriately.”  

Lafayette huffs.  A sudden image of John in Versailles flashing before his eyes.  He’s a tempestuous boy at the best of times, and at the worst--he’s openly hostile.  Frances hasn’t quite inherited her father’s beligerance, she’s been tempered with a strange form of womanly manners that leave her quiet and sullen more than anything else.  But she’s got a fire in her.  A rage.  

There are children in Versailles.  Certainly there are.  But an English girl born of an American traitor and raised as a ward in France is not a titled child worthy of being in Versailles.  She has not the blood nor the title necessary to make her way there.  She’ll be considered less than.  Eternally.  Little more than a servant or potted plant. 

Worse yet, Adrienne  _ knows  _ this.  “She has no place in Versailles,” Lafayette tells her sullenly.  

“She has less of a place here.”  That’s hardly the point.  Opening his eyes, Lafayette finds his wife has paused in her pacing.  Has instead taken to standing before him, hands behind her back.  Head tilted to one side like she was trying to decide what to make of him. 

He wonders what she decides.  

Adrienne’s chin doesn’t move much when she speaks, her lips form words utterly delicately. “Benjamin Franklin has been in Versailles for some time.  He’s become a great friend of the court, and yet he holds no title.  He bears no blood.” 

“He’s a comedy routine,” Lafayette reminds bluntly.  Franklin may be a brilliant man, but his political mechanisms came from his ability to amuse the court with his  _ charming american ways _ .  “Frances will be no joke.”  She’ll be an affront.  

“Affronts have their uses.”  It is, Lafayette thinks, one of the more harsh statements he’s ever heard his wife utter.  He almost wants to argue with her.  He cannot find the energy to do so.  And perhaps that’s what makes him start to laugh.  It’s  _ funny.   _

Assassins from England, mother-in-laws appearing overnight, the thought of Frances Laurens in Versailles.  The thought of  _ him  _ in Versailles.  He laughs and laughs again and again.  Huge hulking chortles that bark out of him.  Causing his chest to ache and his ribs to burn.  

His throat clogs with mucus and his head spins as air fights its way into his lungs.  Laughs turn to coughs, which turn to spasms.  He hunches over his legs, right arm howling in agony.  Adrienne watches all the while.  Lips pursed together.  She doesn’t offer to help.  

When the spell fades, they’re left the same as they were before it began.  She, standing with her eyes piercing and her posture formal.  He, useless in every way that counts.  “We owe King Louis a debt,” Adrienne tells him.  Reminds him, rather.  There’s no doubt that he recalls that debt, but it doesn’t matter in the slightest.  She tells it to him like he’s a child.  

And finally, the anger reaches its precipice, and it tips over the edge.  “A  _ debt?”  _ Lafayette stands.  Sways badly, head spinning.  He collapses back to his bed and he hisses as he attempts to catch himself with his right hand.  Pain spirals through his arm.  He shouts immediately.  Cursing and curling in on himself.  Legs crumpling beneath him. 

His dutiful wife does not rush to his aid.  Staying where she is and watching him struggle.  He wants to hate her for it.  He doesn’t.  Instead, he leans his head against the side of the bed.  Breathes harshly through his nose.  Tears press at his eyes, but he fights valiantly to hold them back.  Keep them in.  

There’s no point in arguing about the  _ debt  _ that they owe the king.  It’s there.  Existing in the dark corners of every room.  A hulking mass growing bigger by the hour.  Casting shadows over lights and dragging them all into pits of despair.  “You are unbearably dramatic at times,” Adrienne tells him with a sigh.  Just because it’s true, doesn’t mean he likes to hear it said. 

Lafayette huffs at her.  Rubs his arm fitfully as he scowls at the floor.  He’s behaving no better than Georges, and a part of him truly relishes the chance to act out.  Perform badly.  He only has a few more days to do so before he’s forced into a routine he’s never liked nor wanted. 

The heavy fabric of Adrienne’s skirt sweeps across his feet as she finally strides toward him.  Finally lowers herself to a kneel.  Her smooth hands trail up his legs until they gently touch his arm.  Lafayette watches the twist of her brow.  How the crevices in her skin deepen with concern as her eyes narrow.  She bites the inside of her lip when she thinks.  It’s not immediately obvious to others when they look at her.  She’s perfected her tell in a way that it’s difficult to see.  But Lafayette has spent hours studying her face.  He can just make out the soft indent beneath her lower lip.  Just to the left. 

She’s thinking. 

“You cannot deny that it is safer in Versailles then it is here,” she says.  He grits his teeth.  

“I can deny it all I want,” he lashes out.  She is unaffected.  One brow raises.  Her head tilts.  Patient and waiting.  Settling, he lets the fury turn inwards once more.  Finishing his tantrum with a growling, “Even if that doesn’t make it true.”

She nods her head as if she’s proud of him for coming to the decision all on his own.  His irritation flares once more, but she doesn’t give him time to form his next thought.  Just pushes onward, careful fingers massaging his arm.  It hurts, but her ministrations generally do help.  She’s been nothing but attentive these past few months.  

“Do you remember the first day we met?”  Adrienne’s voice is pleasant and calm.  Ignorant to his temper.  Fearless in the face of his mood.  He winces when her fingers find a particularly painful spot, but she keeps pressing against his arm.  Keeps massaging her fingers.  Keeps rubbing feeling into a limb that refuses to coorperate.  “You were standing guard.  Right at the palace gates.  Your sharp blue musketeer’s uniform perfectly proper.” 

Her lips curl into a pleasant smile.  Lafayette watches her eyes.  They’re staring off to some distant point beside them.  Staring through time into a year far less complicated than this.  “You’d just finished your daily parade for the king, and were instructed onto watch for a few hours before your studies.”

“Latin,” he recalls.  It was always Latin after midday.  Then geography.  Then politics.  She nods again, smiling growing. 

“My father wished to marry me off, and there you were.” 

It’s not quite how Lafayette remembers it.  But the image is clear nonetheless.  Adrienne in her beautiful gown of silver and golds.  Her hair tied up in the latest fashion.  She’d looked more angelic than anyone he’d ever seen in his life.  And when his duties were done, his lessons concluded, he’d slipped into dinner and taken her hand.  Whispered in her ear, and led her on a run through the gardens of Versailles. 

They’d returned hours later, and had been thoroughly chastised.  Adrienne’s skirt had been covered in mud.  Lafayette’s uniform needed to be cleaned once more.  But they’d spent the night staring at stars, watching the constellations and sharing stories about home. 

Adrienne revelled in telling Lafayette about her siblings.  How her father was a scientist and he instructed each one of them in the arts of mathematics and various other schools of learning.  Her mother had schooled manners in her, and she’d taken them well to heart.  But it hadn’t stopped her mind from being curious about boys in pretty blue.  Who held swords and wore hats.  Children, after all, were still children.  No matter how fancily they’d been taught. 

His wife lifts her hand and trails it through the curling fringe of his hair.  She tucks a stray lock behind his ear, and he leans into her touch.  Her voice dances delicately into his ears and nestles in the cool space within his heart, “We may have had an arranged marriage, but I don’t believe it turned out so badly for either of us.  Do you?”  

There are countless way she can answer.  Countless memories he can refer to.  But his irritation hasn’t entirely faded, and while his love for his wife is still as vibrant as ever, his tongue lashes out without consequence, “Your mother hates me.” 

And if nothing else, his wife merely laughs.  She giggles like a child.  Cheeks flushing and eyes twinkling.  “Do you know why my mother hates you?” she asks, as if there’d ever been any doubt or question. 

As if he’d not lived through her scowling looks, her sharply delivered words, her immense displeasure.  She’d run her eyes over them both that night back when they’d been children.  Taken in their filthy clothes and immediately determined he’d been a scoundrel of the highest kind.  Where Adrienne’s father had laughed it off, her mother had been fierce.  

In some ways, Lafayette wonders if their first born perished due to the malevolence of naming her after such a woman.  “She’s jealous,” Adrienne informs Lafayette anyway.  Of all the answers his wife could have offered, that’s not one he expected.  “You left,” Adrienne continues.  “You left Versailles.  You left the court.  You left everything behind.  You chose for yourself what you wanted.”  

_ Running away,  _ Lafayette thinks,  _ has never sounded so romantic.  _

“You fought a war and became a hero.  You came back with military alliances and prospects for trade.  You elevated yourself, and rejected the lifestyle that you were born into.  You didn’t stay still and simply allow the set rule of  _ tradition  _ rule your every move.  You fought for what you believed in.”  Adrienne’s hand slips into Lafayette’s.  Holding it gently, but with a trail of relentless intent.  Their eyes meet, and Adrienne presses onwards.  “You rejected the notion of who you were meant to be and you became yourself. 

“And how, precisely is this meant to make me feel better, I wonder?” Lafayette asks.  “When we’re returning to Versailles, battered and broken.  To be just what we were when we left, only this time, even less than that.” 

Her fingers tighten.  Her expression turns fierce.  “You live for spite, Gilbert.  You enjoy it entirely too much to forget it now.  My mother has ordered us to Versailles at the King’s behest, and so to Versailles we must go.  But your mission, your goals, and  _ who you are  _ hasn’t altered in the slightest.  So your arm is broken -- men have fought with broken arms before.  So you feel weak -- men have recovered their strength.  You have it in you.  And you have a desire to be more than this.  You always have.”

“What do you suggest?  That I fight a war in Versailles?” 

“I suggest that you  _ suggest  _ a war in Versailles.  And you fight it where your enemy lives.” Releasing his hand, Adrienne settles back on her heels.  “You’ve spent all this time feeling sorry for yourself, when really -- the most spiteful thing you can be at the moment is exactly that.   _ Yourself.   _ You’ve never been one to sit still and let the world tell you who you are, Gilbert.  Don’t do it now.” 

She smiles at him faintly.  Leaning in one last time to kiss his brow.  Then she’s standing.  Settling her dress back into position.  She grimaces faintly.  One hand going to the base of her spine and rubbing.  She has a look of intense concentration on her face, as if there’s a puzzle she can’t quite figure out.  

She’s too good to him, he knows.  Too good  _ for  _ him.  “You know,” he says slowly.  Pushing himself to his feet carefully.  He’s better at it this time.  Stays off his right side and balances more firmly on his feet.  “Your mother hated me long before that.” 

Adrienne huffs.  Rolls her eyes.  “Well it didn’t help,” she amends.  And maybe that’s it.  Maybe that’s the last piece he needed.  His shoulders shake.  His lips quirk upwards.  She meets his eyes and her wry smile is  _ perfect.   _ He’s laughing. 

Then she’s laughing.

They’re laughing together, and when the tears press against Lafayette’s eyes, he takes his wife in hand.  Pulls her to his body.  And holds her close.  “Our war’s not over,” Adrienne murmurs to him.  “There are still battles to be won.  And fights to be fought.” 

“And I will gladly join that fight,” Lafayette sighs.  “If only I could fight it.” 

“You can.”  Adreinne’s mirth disappears in an instant.  Her face presses against Lafayette’s chest so he can’t identify her features.  “You must.  Your battle’s not in Versailles.” 

She doesn’t clarify her position.  But, Lafayette thinks, there’s truly no point. 

They both know it’s true. 

 

***

 

The journey to Versailles is long and arduous.  The carriages move slow, and conversation between their families is stilted.  Eliza and Henriette seem to have come to an understanding of sorts.  Where Lafayette’s churlish mother-in-law seems to have accepted that Eliza is now Adrienne’s confidante in all things, Eliza’s more interested in learning everything she can about Versailles before they arrive. 

Sometimes it surprises Lafayette that Eliza’s not more familiar with certain things.  Her etiquette in London had been picturesque.  Clearly Adrienne had trained her thoroughly prior.  And yet even now, she’s attempting to add to her background.  Collecting a catalogue of behaviors she’ll be expected to perform.  

At Eliza’s side is Frances.  Nestled in by her hip.  Dressed in pretty shades of pink that go well with her darker skin tone.  Her hair is tied up with broaches and curls.  A borrowed necklace around her throat.  She looks much like a little lady.  Lafayette imagines Anastasie looking like her one day.  It’s an alarmingly charming thought. 

For now, his daughter’s spending time with Angelica and the rest of the Church family.  If Lafayette turns his head he can just see them through the back window of the carriage.  Georges and Anastasie cannot be trusted to spend too much time in each others company, and they all pray for the day they mature past the age of petty fights with siblings. 

In a way, Eliza’s tutorage is a good reminder for Georges as well.  He’s mystified by his grandmother.  Staring up at her like she’s the Queen herself, enraptured by her every word.  He makes a charming picture in his pretty coat of blue.  Henriette had brought the outfit with her, and had dressed the boy purposefully.  “It’s what the King prefers,” she’d insisted.  Neither Adrienne nor he cared enough to argue. 

Exhaustion plagues Lafayette.  Hurt spasms through his arm with each bumpy rock of the carriage.  His wife presses against his side, and he sits with his back leaning against the side of the carriage.  Trying to avoid putting any possible pressure on his injury.  

Conversation shifts around him, but he doesn’t think to participate.  He closes his eyes and dozes in fits and turns.  Waking with his breath caught in his throat.  The sound of ravens screaming in his ears.  

The black bird John and Alex had sent him is being held in a cage on the top of the carriage.  It caws angrily and pecks at the bars.  Tired of travelling, and tired of behaving.  Lafayette sympathizes with it greatly.  The strain on the body is, frankly, entirely relatable.  

He hasn’t had much time to inspect the bird.  Between everything else that has been happening, he finds that he has little  _ time  _ to do anything.  Each moment is a grain of sand.  Slipping through his grasp, blown away by the wind.  The bird caws loudly.  The carriage rocks.  And Lafayette wishes he could pause everything for one moment, and just  _ breathe.  _

His thoughts spin.  Sand scatters.  Their guard informs them that they’ll be in Versailles soon, and his bird claws and pecks at the cage louder than before.  “Really,” Henriette grumbles.  “Did you  _ truly  _ need to bring such a creature?  To  _ Versailles? _ ” 

Lafayette can feel his wife stiffen at his side.  Can imagine what she looks like.  What she’s feeling.  Pretty lips still frozen in a patient smile.   Mind spinning for answers.  Lafayette produces one for her.  “Yes,” he says, looking at his mother-in-law.  She sniffs loudly.  Derision filling the carriage immediately.  “I’ll not be parted with it.”

“Her,” Eliza interjects suddenly.  He glanced at her.  She shrugs.  Undeterred.  “I believe someone said it was a  _ her.”  _

Her.  As it should be.  Lafayette nods his thanks, and, in a fit of fancy, laughs.  “America,” he names his raven.  “I’ll not be parted with my America.” 

At his side, Adrienne snickers indelicately.  Breaks from proper decorum and laughs until she cries.  He mother is entirely scandalized.  But it hardly matters.  She takes his hand.  They’re almost there. 


	4. Louis XVI

Living in Versailles is as much about _living_ there as it is _escaping_ it.  Louis-Auguste wasn’t supposed to be king.  His brother was supposed to be king.  But his brother died, and now here he is.  King of France.  And as King of France, Louis climbs onto his stallion and sends it cantering after his hounds in chase of a creature to kill.  

Louis will hunt anything.  Stag, fox, coon.  He’s hunted birds too.  Shot them out of the air and watched as they fell to the ground, his entourage clapping proudly as he manages a shot most could never dream of.  

There are some things Louis is good at.  Things that not even the Duc de le Vauguyon could tell him otherwise on.  Louis can hunt.  He can ride.  And he can make locks.  The rest, he bows his head (metaphorically) to his superiors on.  He wouldn’t do it in practice, he’s the king after all.  But he knows he’s not the most gifted statesman.  He knows he’s not the most talented orator.  He knows he has neither the philosophical mind nor the military discipline that his forefathers had maintained.  He is not the great lover or charmer or architect.

And had he been anyone other than the King of France, perhaps that would have been enough.  But he _is_ the King of France.  And it _isn’t_ enough.

Relations with England had never been pleasant.  They’d... _tolerated..._ a frosty demeanor with their neighbor for hundreds of years.  The only thing that seemed to charm England and her impossible people seemed to come in the form of failed marriages and the defeat of a lesser people.  Louis’ read the reports.  His council had discussed them at great lengths.

America’s war had been a blunder to involve themselves in in the first place, and now...now they were suffering for it.  Councilors were arguing endlessly, Necker and Vergennes seemingly incapable of maintaining their silence in each other’s presence.  Louis has sat through meeting after meeting, listening to them argue and shout at each other.  Demanding one concession or another.  There is nothing that Louis can do.  Nothing that he can give either of them, not without the full picture.

And when the ministers cannot agree, and they turn to him for guidance, Louis can only do what he can do.  He must defer to those with more clarity.  And he must do so in a way that seems as if he’s not deferring to anything at all.  “Summon the Duchesse de Noailles,” Louis had commanded at the conclusion of one such unhelpful meeting.

No one dared speak while they waited for the Duchesse to arrive, and when she did, Louis made his order clear.  “You will ride to the Château de Chavaniac and inform le Marquis de Lafayette and your daughter, Adrienne, that they and their associates in this English affair are to return to Versailles at once.”  With a final glance about his meeting hall, he declared the matter settled until such time as his guests arrive.

Then, Louis set his mind to the hunt.  He needed something to clear his cluttered thoughts, and he was quite happy to let riding be it.

It would be days before the marquis and his companions would arrive in Versailles, and Louis intended to make the most of it until he came.  Saddling his horse and calling for his men to gather, they set loose the hounds and took to the woods.  Riding felt like freedom.  The decorum and the formalities of Versailles are left behind by the stone steps and fountains.  The postures and the hastily whispered honorifics are pushed into a place best left forgotten.

Louis is free here.  In the saddle, with his men.  Free to ride out and not be the least bit overcome by the stress and complications of an eternally displeased court of ministers.  

Marie doesn’t like the hunting.  Doesn’t care much for the outside pursuits at all.  But she’s come to respect his desire to leave the palace in the mornings, just as he respects her desire to pursue her interests.  Where they don’t coincide, they find accommodation.  They speak and listen in the dark of the night when they are meant to be sleeping or preserving the Bourbon line, but neither feel inclined to do either.

While his wife prefers to remain on the grounds with her ladies, she has mentioned she can appreciate the chance to step away from the court from time to time.  Appreciated the clarity that comes from communing with friends and not with ministers or courtiers seeking to know their place.

Just the night before Louis’ ride, he’d reminded Marie of the first time he met Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette.  They had been children.  Sometimes, Louis still _feels_ like a child.  But being King has afforded him with the experience of being both adult and parent to all of France, and he has lost all connection to a childhood he may have wished he’d had.

Back then, though, Lafayette had been fourteen.  Dressed in the dapper blues of a Musketeer.  Presenting himself and parading on march as was expected of him.  He’d gone on hunts with Louis.  Perhaps the reason Louis’ thoughts travelled to him then.  On the eve of a hunt.  Louis recalls how Lafayette served as part of the palace’s guard, always following on any outing Louis wanted to take.  

Lafayette had never belonged at court.  His status had given him legitimacy, certainly.  His work ethic had never been in question.  But it is a King’s duty to be aware of the happenings of his home, and Lafayette had never shown an appetite for the political maneuverings that were required at Versailles.  He’d wanted to run away and be a hero just like all his dead forefathers who lost their lives in battles they thought they should fight in but never should have died in.

That Lafayette ran away from Versailles and did just that shouldn’t have come to a surprise.  Nor should his eventual return with gallant requests and great tales.  Beseeching Louis for use of his army and navy.  His tongue turned clever in his time abroad, speaking of the thing Louis wished he could have started on his own.

A true and proper war against England, proving they were better than that ragamuffin country and their absurd standards. Warring with England is every French king’s destiny.  And Louis had leapt at the chance to succeed.

It is a King’s duty not to let their feelings be known.  To not allow themselves to be manipulated or controlled by their emotions.  A King is meant to be aloof and unencumbered by attachments.  Lessons have run through his mind and he’s hard not to feel them.  It’s hard to ignore them and make a move.  A bold move.  

Marcus Aurelius once said, “Does what's happened keep you from acting with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility, straightforwardness, and all other qualities that allow a person's nature to fulfill itself? So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune,” and those words ring clear in Louis’ mind.  They have endured the loss of a great many of their army and navy, but the King of England is dead at the hand of their French heroes.

And that is a thing not easily forgotten.  A thing that emboldens Louis as he considers his next move.  The Marquis de Lafayette has shown all of England that just because a Frenchman has been wounded, only death could keep them from exacting their revenge.  

With his ministers quiet from his ear, and his mind free to consider his options, Louis rides out into the woods around Versailles and he plans for exactly that.  His options.  War with England is imminent.  America is on the brink of rising up from its ashes.  The reports from his Ambassador in London have been quite clear.  The new King George is a weak king with little knowledge of how to rule, and a parliament that is busy tearing itself into pieces.

There are allies to be had.  Victories to be won.  Money to be secured.  Food and grain to be repurposed toward his own people.  

An animal scurries about in the brush, and Louis prepares himself for the chase.  Urging his horse forward as his companions set to.  The hounds howl in delight, and it feels like there’s blood in the air already.

Louis readies himself for the kill.  He cannot wait to catch his prey.

 

***

 

In the evening, Louis meets with the Marquis de Lafayette and his Marquise in a private audience chamber with only Charles Gravier, Count of Vergennes at his side.  There would be time for a proper introduction to the other Ministers later.  One that can be held once decisions have been made in the appropriate fashion.  Louis wishes to hear first of Lafayette’s recovery and his ability to return to war in a proper fashion.

“I have been informed that your guests have been secured in the Noailles’ lodge on the grounds,” Louis says formally once the proper greetings have been made.  He had made the effort to ride out to meet Lafayette upon his retrieval from England.  He’d reviewed his appearance and his health at the time and had seen his injures well tended to by a physician.

The man’s arm is still wrapped tight in a sling, however, and his posture seems to be unimproved since his time in captivity.  A thing that Louis has been assured would be a temporary matter.  “Yes, your majesty,” Lafayette confirms.  He bows his head.  “You have honored us with your invitation.”

“I must confess that the invitation was not given with honor in mind.  You see your actions in England have caused concerns for the state, and these concerns must be answered for in a manner to the state’s satisfaction.”

It gives Louis no pleasure to act the brute.  It gives him no joy to watch the way Lafayette’s eyes flick to his wife.  Concern evident.  “I do not wish you or your family harm,” he continues, trying to soften the blow.  It works.  “However war is evident.  And discussions must be held.”

“What can you tell us about the American efforts against England now that General Washington is returning to the colonies?” Vergennes asks.  

“I fear communication with General Washington have not been consistent,” Lafayette replies immediately.  “We understand their intentions are to land at the northern coast, likely Maine.  I believe General Von Steuben intends to send a second ship further south.  Their letters have been appropriately vague, fearing interception prior to my receiving them, however.  I do not have a proper communique or code book in place to advise you from.”

“Do you believe the Colonies will rally in response to General Washington since their defeat?” The questions are delicate.  Necessary, however.  If they’re to properly attack England, they’re going to need to do so in steps.  Taking all necessary precautions so that the other ministers will agree.

Louis longs for this fight.  Wants to see it more than he’s wanted anything else in the world, save a son and family to be with.  But he has both son and family, and now this fight is here.  A fight where he can make his mark on the Bourbon line and prove his detractors wrong.  He may be a timid king, a quiet king, but he has no intentions of being a weak king.

He wants to be the king the people love, and the one that the people can praise.  They had called out for the blood of the English the moment the news of Lafayette began to fill their rumors.  A frenchman taken from the field of battle and not ransomed back to France, but instead tortured in the Tower of London as though he were some common knave?  Never before had there been such a roar of support for the nobility from the lower classes, and even now Louis is fundamentally aware that support is merely a façade that is hiding the passions of his subjects.

They seek satisfaction and just judgement.  They seek appropriate and fair treatment, and if he cannot deliver or champion such causes he will be at their volatile mercy.  A mercy, he has no intentions of finding himself subjected to.

“I do,” Lafayette says firmly.  “They loved their General before his capture, and his return will be seen as prophecy.  So too will his acquisition of the Tower Ravens.  Who now fly in his menagerie as a symbol of their victory.  King George is dead, and the British morale is shaken.  I believe with the right amount of pressure put in the right places, a war with England could be be beneficial to our country.”

“To be clear,” Louis cuts in.  “Beneficial to France.  Not simply the American colonies you love and hold so dear.”

Lafayette flushes dark.  “Yes,”  he replies anyway.  “To France.”

Spoken as a true French loyalist.  Louis turned to Vergennes.  Satisfied with the answers he’s received.  Vergennes has been eager for a war with England too, eager to press on this new advantage offered to them by the Marquise and her companions.  “There are some who will still argue that we have a more pressing need here in France.  One that will only be exacerbated by the conflict of war.  England is weakened, yes.  But their armies and navy are still generally intact.  For such a war to be successful we will not only have to create a force capable of withstanding those men, but also one we can sustain throughout the conflict.”

The Marquise shifts at her husband’s side.  Catching his eye and tilting her head subtly.  A kind of spousal communication that Louis has learned to keep an eye out for.  There are good husbands and bad husbands, and Louis makes it a point to not care too much about either.  But when there are husbands and wives who can understand one another and speak to one another without words, _they_ are ones to be conscious of.  For any alliances that take place within his halls must be categorized and put into its proper place in his mind.

For this nation to survive, all must be in its proper order, and even the smallest node must have its place.  Louis has known for some time that the Marquis and his wife shared an uncommonly strong bond of marriage.  Seeing it is always a delight.  “Your Majesty, my wife…” Lafayette motions to her, and Louis meets her eyes.

“Marquise,” he greets.  Permission granted for her to join this conversation as he’d intended from the start.  She wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t been interested in her input.  One does not simply assassinate the King of England and then not have a place at the planning board.

“A man came to our home late in the night not long ago, the day before we received your invitation to Versailles.  He came intending to do my house guests and ourselves grievous harm.  Nearly killing Eliza Hamilton in the process.  She escaped his attempts, and we were able to apprehend the man, delivering him into the custody of those at the bastille prior to our arrival.  If your ministers are in need of encouragement to conduct this war, then perhaps the one who can speak to its necessity we have already acquired.”

Louis needs a moment to process that.  The Marquise spoke with care and consideration, her tone was polite and perfect, but her words held more weight than Louis anticipated.  He glanced toward Vergennes.  Unsurprised to see that he too was struggling under the weight of the words.  “A man intending to do you harm?  To what end?”

“A British end.  He was sent by King George IV it would seem,” Lafayette informs.  “We have interrogated him, but any additional questions that you may have I am certain your men can pull out to your satisfaction.”

Moments ago, Louis had just been thinking how delightful assassinating George had been, and yet here they are now.  Discussing assassins in _France._  It’s not quite as pleasant in the reverse.  “How did you do it?” Louis asks her.  She blinks at him dolefully.  With her face painted and her hair done up in a proper wig, she hardly looks like a murderer.  Her fine little fingers and her narrow waist.  She belongs in one of his wife’s parties.  At their salons.  Dancing and singing with the others.  Playing cards.

He can’t quite see her as a hardened soul capable of cold blooded killing.  Not as she stands there smelling of perfume.  “Poison,” she replies quietly.  “King George III was poisoned after my associates gained his trust and provided the scene and setting necessary to proceed.  The plan took time to put into effect, your majesty.”

Poison.  It’s always been a woman’s tool.  Louis feels a touch of nausea at the idea, though.  Thinks of poor Queen Charlotte and how she died at her husband’s side.  Innocent but unaware of the circumstances that were falling into place around her.  He has a wife and children of his own, and he cannot quite fathom what would happen should he die suddenly and leave them with little chance of managing the kingdom.  

He adjusts his clothes absently.  Straightening the lines of his tunic and pulling absently at his collar.  “Send a man to the bastille and inquire as to the thoughts and intentions of this intruder,” Louis requests of Vergennes.  “If a member of our nobility can be so pointedly attacked in their own home, then it seems fair to consider that such a thing could happen here in ours.  I will not take a threat against this crown lightly.  When the council meets tomorrow, we will present the decision for full and complete war against England.  Recall our ambassadors for discussion.  I want to know which allies would be in support of such efforts, and which ones can be convinced through promises of future spoils.”

The Marquise shares another secret smile with her husband who takes her hand in his.  Squeezing it as he breathes out slowly.  Carefully.  Louis wonders precisely what kind of plans they had made on their journey here.  For a boy who had once slipped out of France without permission to fight a war across the ocean, Lafayette has certainly risen to a position where his personal experiences are shaping the nation.

It’s rather disquieting to say the least. “As for you, Marquis...I would have you and your guests remain in Versailles under guard.  No member of your family or associates are to travel the grounds unattended.”  For both their protection, and the protection of those within Versailles.

He is incapable of of forgetting the plot that the Marquise fulfilled.  The choices she made that led them here.  She didn’t have to kill the King of England.  But she’d done it.  And while he had no intentions of seeing harm come to her and her kin...it would be foolish to let her roam the palace unrestricted.  Anyone’s loyalty can be tested, and he will see to it that hers is to her country first.

And not to her husband, as he rather suspects the hierarchy lies.  

Versailles is his home, and he will not have it infiltrated or controlled without his full and total understanding, first.

Right now?

He does not fully trust the Marquis or his Marquise.  Not yet.  But soon, he shall see for himself and put it to the test.


End file.
